What would happen if we really took seriously the teaching of Jesus
and took off our masks, stopped hiding, quit pretending, stopped playing a part, and just got real?
Real about the people that we are. Real about our love. Real about our relationship with God.

Getting Real About Life, about Love, and about God

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Lenten Reflection #6: Being Christian

Yesterday I heard a song several times that I had never heard before. The song is by country music artist Carrie Underwood. It is a song about being changed by her relationship with Christ. It talks about how after being baptized she was no longer the same. The message of the song is biblical and powerful. We are no longer the same after we make Christ our lives. We are no longer the same people. The old is gone and the new has come. It is no longer I that live but Christ that lives through me. In Christ we can do all things. In our weaknesses he is strong. We are changed. We are stronger. Because of our relationship with Christ.

One of the times that I heard the song I was with my daughter Delaney and she said, "Hey, isn't this Carrie Underwood? I didn't know that she sang this kind of song." I think Delaney assumed that we were listening to a "Christian" radio station because that is what my radio is usually on. The song could easily be a worship song played on Christian radio and in church. However, I had surfed to a country station and it was on that station probably because she is one of country musics biggest stars more than the content of the song.

What struck me is how we compartmentalize our spirituality. Kind of like we have different stations for different types of music. Too often we life our lives like we have a spiritual station, a work station, a home station, a fun station and all other types of stations for different aspects of our life. This causes us to live like these stations are not related. So, what we do in our spiritual life we don't relate to our home life or our work life and somehow we think we can separate what we do at home or work from our relationship with Christ. Yet, this is not so. God is not interested in our spiritual lives he wants us. He want us to make him our whole lives.

What struck me most about this song was that we cant compartmentalize it. Is it a country song? Is it a worship song? Is it suppose to be played on a country station or a Christian station? These are the question that come out of living this compartmentalized life. We need to label and we need to place it in the right area of life.

But that is not the way it should be if we are changed and we are living as followers of Jesus. Our relationship with Jesus will change our work and how we do our work. It should change the way that are husbands and wives, sons and daughters and brothers and sisters. When we live in relationship with Christ it changes the way that we live in relationship with all other people. Our lives are changed and we can no longer do what we use to do the same way. We are now living in and through Christ. So, if we are a country music singer we are country singers living in relationship with Christ and that will come through in our music. If we are teachers than we are teachers living in relationship with Christ and that will come through in the way that we care for and help others learn. We are not just an occupational title and work separate from Christ. We are not dads, moms, brothers, sisters, children, separated from our relationship with Christ. If we are, we are just playing church and have not surrendered our lives to Christ and living in relationship with him.

Does your relationship with Jesus show in all aspects of your life. Has it changed who you are? Have you surrendered all areas or are you still trying to live a compartmentalized life?

I don't desire to be a great pastor. I long to be a Christian one. It is not my dream to be a great husband and father I want to be a husband and father that follows Jesus. I don't want to be a great fire fighter and not be a Christian one. I want to have everyone that I encounter see in the way that I do what I do and say what I say that I live my life as a follower of Jesus. I long for them to see in all that I do that I have been changed. I pray that the song of my life is a worship song and that we all might allow our relationship with Him to come through in all areas of our lives.